The Great Theater of the World by Elżbieta Wittlin Lipton

Migration Studies – Review of Polish Diaspora nr 3 (177)/2020, http://www.ejournals.eu/Studia-Migracyjne/ DOI: 10.4467/25444972SMPP.20.030.12594 The Great Theater of the World by Elżbieta Wittlin Lipton JUSTYNA BUDZIK1 ORCID: 0000-0003-3530-0647 Institute of American Studies and Polish Diaspora Jagiellonian University The paper takes as its focus the theatrical oeuvre of Elżbieta Wittlin Lipton – a Polish émigré artist and the daughter of an eminent Polish émigré writer Józef Wittlin. It presents a concise introduction to the artistic work of Wittlin Lipton – her costume and set designs – which she has been cre- ating on the European (Spain) and North American continents (United States) since late seventies of the previous century onwards. Biographical facts have been outlined here along with the most charactristic features of her artistic style, with a special emphasis laid on the Spanish genius loci which should be regarded as the most outstanding trait of her total work. The paper constitutes a part of a book devoted to the life and artistic achievements of Elżbieta Wittlin Lipton which the author of this manuscript has been currently writing. Key words: theatrical costume and set design, Spanish genius loci, émigré artist Polish Émigré Literature and Art – An Introduction There can be no denying that the Polish literature and art created outside the country since the beginning of the previous century has an enduring fascination for critics. Polish literary achievements have been thoroughly described in numerous mono- graphic studies on both writers who left Poland just before the outbreak of World War II, like Witold Gombrowicz, Czesław Straszewicz, or Andrzej Bobkowski, as well as those who were part of the “war emigration,” who for political reasons were com- 1 Contact: [email protected] Please cite as: Budzik J., (2020), The Great Theater of the World by Elżbieta Wittlin Lipton, “Studia Migracyjne – Przegląd Polonij- ny”, 3 (177): 51–60. DOI: 10.4467/25444972SMPP.20.030.12594 51 JUSTyNA BUDzIk The Great Theater of the World by Elżbieta Wittlin Lipton pelled to seek refuge outside Europe when the war broke out. Here I have in mind Józef Wittlin, Jan Lechoń, or kazimierz Wierzyński, to name just a few. Some aban- doned Poland as infants or teenagers, such as Andrzej Busza2 and Eva Hoffman.3 Others, like Anna Frajlich4 or Stanisław Barańczak,5 were forced to leave Poland much later – in the 1960s or 80s. The European destinations most frequently chosen by Polish émigré writers were London and Paris. In the former, the Polish literary activity gained a boost in the 1940s, when the Wiadomości social and cultural weekly was published in 1946. The latter became home to a Polish-language publishing house, Instytut Literacki [The Literary Institute], headed by Jerzy Giedroyć. The Kultura [Cul- ture] monthly journal was published there from 1948 to 2000. Outside of Europe, Polish writers emigrated to the United States (e.g. Czesław Miłosz, Henryk Grynberg, Józef Wittlin, Anna Frajlich), Canada (Andrzej Busza, Bog- dan Czayowski) and Central or South America (Sławomir Mrożek and Witold Gom- browicz, respectively). From the beginning of the last century, Polish art has been created alongside the émigré literature. The most comprehensive studies on this subject are on the milieu of Polish painters based in Great Britain and in Italy. Monographs on art of Marian Bohusz-Szyszko, Halima Nałęcz, or Wojciech Falkowski might be singled out,6 as well as a separate study on Polish artists known as “Anders’ Artists,”7 who settled in Great Britain after World War II. This group included Józef Czapski, Stanisław Gliwa, zyg- munt Turkiewicz, and karol Badura, to name just a few. The Polish-French artistic milieu was also the subject of a separate analysis of Polish art in France in 1890–1919.8 Last but not least, Polish art in North Amer- 2 Andrzej Busza (born 1938, Poland) is a Polish-Canadian poet, essayist and translator, author of several collections of poems; Professor Emeritus of English literature at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada; in 1939 his family left Poland and fled through Romania to Palestine, where they lived until 1947; from 1947 to 1965 he resided in London, Great Britain; in 1965 Busza moved to Van- couver, Canada. 3 Eva Hoffman (born 1945, Poland) is a Polish-American writer and professor of literature and creative writing at Columbia University, the University of Minnesota and MIT; author of several novels; in 1959 she emigrated with her parents and sister to Canada; she lives in London. 4 Anna Frajlich (born 1942, kyrgyzstan) is a Polish poet and senior lecturer in Polish literature at Co- lumbia University in New york. Following an anti-semitic campaign in 1968, she was driven from Poland, and with her husband and their small son, they emigrated via Rome to the United States (New york). 5 Stanisław Barańczak (1946–2014) was a Polish poet, literary critic, translator, scholar. He was fired from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań for his involvement in politics. He left Poland for political reasons in 1981 and emigrated to the United States, where he was offered an academic post at Harvard University. 6 Jan Wiktor Sienkiewicz, Marian Bohusz-Szyszko: Życie i twórczość 1901–1995 (Wydawnictwo katolickiego Uniwersytetu Lubelskiego, Lublin 1995); Halima Nałęcz (Oficyna Wydawniczak ucharski, Toruń 2007); Wojciech Falkowski. Malarstwo. Painting (Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Marii Curii Skłodowskiej, Lublin 2005); Sztuka w poczekalni. Studia z dziejów plastyki polskiej na emigracji 1939–1989 (Wydawnic- two Naukowe Uniwersytetu Mikołaja kopernika, Toruń 2012). 7 Jan Wiktor Sienkiewicz, Artyści Andersa. Uratowani z “nieludzkiej ziemi” (Non omnis, Warsaw 2017). 8 Ewa Bobrowska-Jakubowska, Artyści polscy we Francji w latach 1890–1919. Wspólnoty 52 i indywidualności (Wydawnictwo DIG, Warsaw 2004). ica has been documented in two works entitled – Z polskim rodowodem. Artyści polscy i amerykańscy polskiego pochodzenia w sztuce Stanów Zjednoczonych w latach 1900–1980 (With the Polish Ancestry: Polish Artists and American Artists of Polish Descent in the Art of the United States in 1900–1980; trans. J. Budzik)9 and Portret trzech pokoleń polskich artystów plastyków na emigracji w Kanadzie w latach 1939–1989 (A Portrait of Three Generations of Polish Émigré Visual Art- ists in Canada in 1938–1989, trans. J. Budzik).10 These two books are crucial to an understanding of the idiosyncrases of Polish art created abroad, but neither should be regarded as an exhaustive source of knowledge on Polish art on the North American continent, especially as, in either case, the author’s analysis does not go beyond the 1980s. Therefore, there is still an urgent need to extend the scope of research on the Polish art in North America after the 1980s, and also in other European countries where such studies have yet to be conducted. There is a strong correspondence be- tween various fields of art, and so more often than not, literature influences art and art, literature. This observation also concerns Polish émigré writers and visual artists, whose work is often interdisciplinary. Elżbieta Wittlin Lipton – a Polish-born costume and set designer, the daughter of Józef Wittlin, the eminent Polish émigré writer, is a good case in point here. Although her impressive, interdisciplinary oeuvre deserves a complete study to highlight features of her theatrical designs, so far her art has been overshadowed by Józef Wittlin’s literary output.11 This changed recently, when the Institute of Literature and the Judaica Jewish Cultural Center staged an exhibition of her theater costumes and set designs in krakow in 2019. Most visitors of this exhibition saw Wittlin Lipton’s art for the first time, and, as one may assume, many were unaware of the fact that Elżbieta Wittlin Lipton has been part of the American and Spanish theater and art scene since the late 70s.12 Unfortunately, her name features neither in With the Polish Ancestry..., whose overview ends at the beginning of the 1980s, nor in any other publication examining different aspects of Polish set design.13 No work on the Polish émigré artistic milieu 9 Szymon Bojko, Z polskim rodowodem. Artyści polscy i amerykańscy polskiego pochodzenia w sztuce Stanów Zjednoczonych w latach 1900–1980 (Oficyna Wydawnicza kucharski, Toruń 2007). 10 Katarzyna Szrodt, Portret trzech pokoleń polskich artystów plastyków na emigracji w Kanadzie w latach 1939–1989 – a PhD dissertation defended at the University of Warsaw in 2016. 11 Józef Wittlin (1896–1976) was a novelist, essayist, poet and translator, author of Sól ziemi (Salt of the Earth), Mój Lwów (My Lviv), Orfeusz w piekle XX wieku (Orpheus in the Hell of the Twentieth Century), and Hymny (Hymns). 12 The author of this paper is preparing to publish a monograph entitled Ojczyzny artystyczne Elżbiety Wittlin Lipton (Elżbieta Wittlin Lipton's Artistic Homelands). 13 I have in mind a recent publication: Odsłony Współczesnej scenografii. Problemy-sylwetki-rozmowy (An Outline of Contemporary Set Designs: Problems-Images-Discussons; trans. J. Budzik). Ed. katarzyna Fazan, Agnieszka Marszałek, Jadwiga Rożek-Sieraczyńska (Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, krakow 2016). 53 JUSTyNA BUDzIk The Great Theater of the World by Elżbieta Wittlin Lipton in Spain has been published to date – and this is Wittlin Lipton’s adoptive country, where she has been working on and off for different theaters since the late 1990s. The main purpose of this paper is to present Elżbieta Wittlin Lipton’s theater designs through the most outstanding examples of her artistic accomplishments. Since her whole life has been marked by the immigrant experience, and by living on two continents – North America and Europe – this manuscript will also reveal the extent to which the artist’s work is inflected by different culture contexts and by her own literary and painterly fascinations. Transcending Geographical Borders In 1940, at the age of eight, Elżbieta Wittlin fled Poland with her mother Halina Wit- tlin.

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